October 01, 2012

PRP this....PRP that - What does it all mean??

If you deal with linked properties in drawings at all you most likely have noticed all these $PRP strings floating around. It can be confusing to understand what all these different strings mean; how do you choose between $PRP, $PRPSHEET, $PRPVIEW, and $PRPMODEL? In most cases, SolidWorks will choose theses for you depending on the type of linked property you choose, but at times it's helpful to know what each of these mean. Well, i'm going to set the record straight for you...

Let's start with $PRP. With any linked property you'll notice they all have the syntax $PRP<propertytype>"<propertyname>"

When using just $PRP you are referencing a Custom Property that is located in the properties of the current document. This is most often a property of the drawing.

You can see below that syntax for the above property is $PRP:"Current Document" which indicates that it's a property of the drawing that I'm placing the note in.

Next we'll look at $PRPSHEET. This is probably the most common type of linked property people will use. The specifics of this syntax can get kind of tricky when you have multiple views of different parts on the same sheet.

$PRPSHEET references the custom property of the model in the view specified under sheet properties

If the model specified in Sheet Properties for custom properties is Default, then for notes belonging to drawing
views, the model in the drawing view to which the note belongs is used.

If the note is not attached to any view and the model in sheet properties is set to default, the model in the first drawing view placed is used. This also applies to notes that are placed inside the sheet format.

The next prefix we'll look at is $PRPVIEW. This is similar to $PRPSHEET except that the note with the linked property has to be attached to a view as seen in the screenshot below. It will then reference a property of the model in that view. This can be helpful if you have your Sheet Properties set to reference a certain view in the drawing but you have another view of a different model that you'd like to link to a property as well.

The final prefix we'll look at on this journey through the PRP's is $PRPMODEL. This type is used in assembly drawings when you want to references a property of a component within the view of the full assembly.

You'll notice from the screenshot above that the note that this prefix is used in must be attached to the component that has the property you want to link to (the note leader may be removed from the Note Property Manager).

And that my friends concludes our discussions of the PRP prefixes. You are all now experts on linked properties in drawings!